Governments other than the norm

[Unn4m3d253]

Let me start off this by saying that I start this thread off with the ambitious goal of hopefully havign a legitimate discussion about governments that typically do not see a lot of light, specfically, the form of government form called a Technocracy. I suggest reading the wikipedia article (sorry, it actually gives good information) before commenting, because the government form is complex and leaves a lot for individual interpretation.


Technocracy: Government by the smart and skilled

This is not a government that is employed in full or (for the most part) in part by ANY country that exists today, although, one could argue that Confucius articulated and put this flavor of gov't into words long ago, the idea is relatively new.

A technocracy in my mind is by far the most efficient and effective form of government.

Here's why:

All democracries and republics are ridiculously inefficient and usually the governments of these countries are ridiculously out of touch with the constituents (look at the fact that Harry Reid is like 60, how can he or Mitch McConnell [58ish] represent me, an 18 year old?). You might be tempted to make the argument that most voters are over 18, but look at the fact that these senile fools will be dead by the time I have to deal with the stifling laws and regulations that they attempt to put to paper. Most politicians in democratic countries are only out for themselves, because by the time that they get into offcie they have already lived hjalf of their live(s) [sorry, poor/awkward grammar].

I also don't want this to be a discussion about how democracy or America or Britain or whatever country you may have a grievance with, sucks. This is a discussion about for lack of a better word, "government tiers". And I just happen to think that governments like a Technocracy occupy the top Tier.

Sorry, sidetracked:

Also, communist countries and other "alternative government forms" tend to leave the elderly in office (look at Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov, they were HELLA OLD).
-In a Technocratic form of government, the youth of the nation (sorry REALLY unintentionally bad pop-culture reference) or the people from say, 25-45 are in the government.

Also the government is arranged into tiers based on capability and intelligence. That way the smartest people occupy the top tiers of government. As far as "intellectual mobility" schooling would I think have to be greatly emphasized and be very cutt-throat without regards to bias for those who are rich or poor (though hopefully the Technocratic government would espouse capitalistic tendencies, I cant see this working with egalitarianism).

If the citizens of the country did not like the government there would have to be some provision to get rid of all the people who were in the top tiers so that fresh blood could be infused into the political system.

I think that an age cap for government service (like the house of representatives if we continue our American comparison) would enable the government to actual carry out the will of the people. I think that a valid age cap would be like 45. Elections would I think be the biggest problem because I am not sure how interested other young people are in political duty (see "civic virtue") but I think that the best way to do it would be this:

Have a number (like 100) of the most intelligent people (hopefully they have differing ideaologies) in the country (based on test scores taken at say, 18-20 years of age) in a pool. Then have like 9 or 11% of these people be elected by popular vote. These people would then be a quorum. They would decide certain matters of international scope, while another group of people elected the same way would deal with national matters like taxation, etc. Then a group of people could be appointed to help the various compartments of the government work more efficiently and work together (un like certain elements of the American system).

I think that one of the biggest problems with this system would be forcing people in the government to take their own ideologies out of their work.

THere are two things that merit addena:

1) I don't hate old people. I just don't want them telling me that I cant have a fishbowl with me when I go on a bus (Seattle Blue Book Law)

2) I hate the fact that ideology and politics have become so inseparable, I am a conservative, but I find that both conservatives and liberals polarize the political arena in most governments unneccesarrily, purely for their own benefit, and I think that a Technocratic government would help alleivate this pervceived problem.


Well, now its your turn, comment at will.

 

[Vyacheslav]

Survival of the fittest isn't very viable..and that is what, realistically, any form of a technocracy would be. Who's to say what 'most qualified' is? I am a whiz at Beatles history, am I qualified? Nope? Then why is the man who is a great planter?

It's to subjective, and really, it would boil down to those with money being able to market themselves as the best candidate.

The only viable form of government is Democracy, lest some day a benevolent dictator is birthed.

 

[Unn4m3d253]

I have to disgree, I think that being able to divorce government from the American system of a bunch of rich old white men is important. I don't think that a technocracy is survival of the fittest, because intelligence can be measured easily and does not neccesarily show up in the rich (look at what happend to the DuPont family, or the Rockefellers, and there's a million other examples, just in America). In addition, Ithink that you are confusing intelligence with affluence, many of the millionaires in America are not neccesarily intelligent, they may just be lucky (lottery) have their money passed down to them (rockefellers, DuPonts) or they have gained their money in ill-begotten ways. Christine Gregoire (I think? Maybe it one of my state's senators) divorced her husband while she had an affair with another man, and got rich off of Alimony payments, then married the politician she had the affair with and got into politics the good-ol-fashioned nepotism way. I think that eliminating neoptism woudl be an important element of a technocracy (look at the Kennedy family).

A technocratic government I think addresses a lot of these problems with logic, although I think that implementing it would be difficult because we humans are flawed and self-serving creatures at heart.

Here's an idea:

A guy (or gal) gets rich (say 1 billion dollars) by heading some company. he sells the company and invests the money in a bank that gives 10% interest per year. He then makes sure (via lawyers) that the money cannot be used for say 100 years. After a hundred years his offspring would have $10000000000. he could have his lawyers work with a will to prevent his (grand, etc.)children from using it for any purpose other than hiring a mercenary army (sorry if this sounds unrealistic) and using said army to take over a small african country. Because the children would be working with almost nothing once they took over the country they could implement said technocratic form of government. This is very theoretical, I jsut figured Id throw it out there. I apologize for the lack of realism, lol.

 

[obi]

That fails to take into account things like inflation, devaluation of currency, the possibility of a banking collapse, etc. Also the first step "Get rich", kind of understates this. "Alright, guys, here's how we're going to get to other planets. First, we get some sort of space ship with life support systems capable of lasting thousands of years. Then we just tell people to come on our spaceship (via advertisements) and start colonizing! (sorry if this sounds unrealistic)"

An upper age limit would be absurd. You are essentially removing the most experienced people from the pool of government workers, which means your country would have greater difficulties dealing with other nations. If someone doesn't represent you, then don't reelect them. Arbitrary age caps that are two degrees removed from the problem make no sense. It's like saying the following:

I want to, for whatever reason, fill my government with tall people. The average height of a Norwegian male is 6'0", and the average height of a Chinese male is 5'5". Therefore, I will hire all Norwegians and no Chinese.

That obviously makes no sense, because I could just gauge them by their height, instead of a factor that I've found that relates to height. It also means I won't get Yao Ming, but I would get a Norwegian who suffers from dwarfism, or just happens to be short.

In short (heh), a meritocracy is always going to be the best form of government (if you can get beyond the process by which they are selected, which can be somewhat difficult), and arbitrary caps because you are angry at the elderly does not move toward that model.

 

[PassiveObserver]

Would Technocracy and Democracy be mutually exclusive of one another?
If your answer is no, why not incorporate the best of both in one another?
If yes, why do you believe they are mutually exclusive?

I believe they are not mutually exclusive, and we have experienced a partial Technocracy at least in terms of the American Republic.

I mean think of how The State Department and Department of Defense operated during the Cold War containment policies. Do you believe the institutions were operating on anything you'd think is a representative form of Government (For instance if people decided to start dismantling ICBMs because of NIMBY thoughts, do you believe the DoD would just toss up its arms on the whims of Congress/Executive branches telling them to do so?)

Well first of all, that issue would never have came up, but even if it did, The Department of Defense and the Washington "Wiz Kids" such as McNamara really wouldn't do anything on the part of the people, but instead on the self-preservation of the state.

They operate on risk assessment and all sorts of things in decisions made, of course in recent years we can see this didn't work out as well as it had just as in the containment policies, they still operate on a Technocrat basis.